EP heart procedure

[concernmom1043]

my son needs an EP done.  He is a 21 very healthy vegetarian,   He fainted and before that he felt his heart was biting real fast. his cardiologist suggest that an EP needs to be done after a numerous, echos, electrocard, mri stress test.  What are the risks. and

[tom_h]

Adding to what grendslori posted.  A 30 day monitor or implanted moniotor is usually prescribed before literally going in.  The costs associated with the monitor are a fraction of an EP study with ablation and help the physicians know what they're even going after.  From my experience, you son has completed several of the usual steps going towards the EP study.  I believe he would now wear a recorder as the final step.  It's a device about the size of a deck of cards.  It has 2 user replaceable eledtrode pads that are replaced daily.  You wear 24/7 except for showering or bathing.  The user downloads any recordings the devices picks up to a lab for review and forwarding to the physician.

The study itself is fairly easy for the patient.  He may or may not be asleep for it.  Recovery is a couple of days, and he is ambulatory at all times.  I went out for breakfast the moring following my procedure.  Most times you are released the same day.  Only if you run late will they keep you for stabilization and observation.  The insertion site are nothing more than puncture wounds which close on their own; no stitches.  He'd be 100% in a couple of weeks.  I was driving 50 miles to work within 4 days, and that was due to the weekend.  Get in done on a Thursday, and he'd most likely be ready to go by Monday.

The cost for the procedure is high; anywhere from $75K to $100K.  Physicians don't care about the cost to the patient.  They'll push for the EP procedure.  It's not uncommon for patients to go in and for the electrophysiologist to be unable to provoke the arrhythmia.  The cost is still nearly the same.  If I were you, I'd get the long term recorder done first to make sure your future expense is worth it.

[grendslori]

An EP has a certain amount of risk involved, but the good news is that the EP Specialist will actually try and induce an arrhythmia  to see what type and where the arrhythmia is coming from. Once he can do that, he will know how to treat it: with an ablation or medications. This is all under a control setting and is much more safe than having your son out on the street. The down side to the EP Study is that if the electrical tracts are not "active" on the day of the proceedure, they will not be able to figure out where the problem is coming from. Ask about your son having a King Of heart's Monitor put on for him to wear for 30 days that way he can press the buttomn if he feels any irregular heart beats. The EKG will only pick up an arrhythmia at the exact time it is happening and may be "normal" all of the rest of the time, the echo checks for wall thicknesses and shows how well the heart is pumping blood as well as checking the physical structures of the heart, it does not show arrhythmias, stress tests may or may not be helpful, like the EKG, they may or may not show a problem, if the problem doesn't show up while the test is being run. It will show, however, if the heart is receiving enough blood while it's working hard....if there is not enough bloodflow, arrhythmias can result. I'm not sure exactly what the MRI will show about the heart.  Hope this helps.  

[updownleftright]

There's always going to be some risk involved, but EP's are usually very safe and very rarely do problems ever arise.
If all his other tests came back normal the risk involved would be minimized even more.